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Diamond Skulls Review

Aristocrat Hugo is so obsessed with his own missus that he accidentally runs over her oblivious doppleganger, and doesn't bother hanging around or telling the police, tangling himself is a web of infatuation and guilt.

Aristo-bashing is rampant in this well-dressed British thriller, in which a Lucan-like Lord is shielded from the law by class and cronies. The aged, leering pater (Michael Hordern) is dotty, the dowager's a drunk, the Sloaney daughter's slutty and the regimental officers are unspeakable.

Son and heir, ex-Army chap and no stranger to the grape, Lord Hugo Buckton (Gabriel Byrne, well cast against type and brooding handsomely) has run down and killed an unfortunate cook. Whilst having his portrait painted and prowling the estate he ponders the suspected infidelities of his gorgeous wife Ginny (Amanda Donohoe), whom he may have confused with the object of his vehicular indiscretion.

His passengers in the car having been fellow inebriates from the regiment, all agree to keep silent about the incident. But one of the coves, pricked by his conscience, shows signs of letting the side down when the riff-raff from CID rear their heads. Will he spill the beans, will he take the rap, or will he get what's coming to a class traitor?

The curiously persistent flashbacks of haunted Hugo and flagrant Ginny engaging in a kind of intercourse are unattractively baffling and it's all terribly unkind to toffs, but has sufficient glam and mystery to intrigue.